National Blog

On the Hill

Today, the Senate will continue consideration of a non-binding, "sense of the Senate" resolution, S. 1323, that basically amounts to the Senate engaging in class warfare against "the rich" by declaring they must "make a more meaningful contribution to the deficit reduction effort." A vote is expected around 5:30pm, and you can expect more Republicans to vote "NO" this time around. A GOP staffer said they wanted to debate and amend Reid's resolution, which is supposedly why they voted for it last time. Poor strategy.

In the House, they will take up a bill to overturn the incandescent light bulb ban. The vote could end up closer than it was supposed to, since the GOP brought it up under suspension of the rules, requiring 290 "Aye" votes.

Perhaps it's good the bill may go down. As some have pointed out, the BULB Act, H.R. 2417, may actually go too far and encroach on federalist principles with Sec. 3 and 4 by prohibiting state and local regulations of light bulbs. (This is typical of Washington policy -- simple, common sense ideas, such as overturning a light bulb ban, get taken too far into an unconstitutional realm that strict constructionists would have a difficult time supporting.)

Reason has a great post about why the government decided to ban the old incandescent -- hint - because consumers didn't want to pay for the newer, more expensive bulbs.